OT: German identification with/appropriation of civil rights movement/Black power movement

[Ben Zimmer]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> At 4/27/2012 10:30 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >On Apr 27, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Amy West wrote:
> >
> > > (quick: who remembers which African nation is a former German colony?)
> >
> >I do! I do!  Tanganyika!  (Now folded into Tanzania, and later
> >wrested from Germany by the British, maybe as a result of WWI.  And
> >no, I don't remember about this from my childhood, but from my years
> >studying Swahili at UCLA.)
>
> I did too, probably from my childhood -- but I forgot its name.  The
> colony in which Rosie's brother was an Anglican missionary, until the
> Germans destroyed the native village and killed him, and skipper
> Allnutt returned on the African Queen.
>
> But I now learn that German East Africa comprised three present-day
> countries, Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania.  And there was German South
> West Africa, now Namibia.  And in West Africa, a colony that that I'm
> incapable of identifying with present-day countries without
> overlaying two maps.  [Wikipedia: German colonial empire.]

That's Togo (formerly Togoland), I think.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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